Jessing
by shadoedseptmbr
Summary: Hawke has a new tattoo


_Flipping Coins: Just after the duel with the Arishok, so just into the second three year skip._

_Bioware owns all, I just gratefully play in their sandbox._

**Jessing**

Sodding archers. The arrow had grazed her palm when she deflected it. The point had neatly split the leather and bitten a groove into her hand. It was better, Aedan supposed, than hitting her face, but still. She poked at the edges of the cut, wincing and ruing the preference for comfort that had influenced her to choose the deerhide over the practical protection of something tougher.

Anders finished repairing Varric's sprained thumb and came over, holding his hand out. "Let me see."

She tucked her hand behind her. "It's nothing. I'll pour some elfroot over it later."

"Why waste the potion?" He looked down his nose at her with his best superior healer look and held his hand out again, emphatic. "Come on, then. It could have been poisoned. You aren't the only one who plays dirty, you know."

"I'd have felt that by now."

"Why so reluctant, Hawke?" Frowning, Anders reached out for her.

"Hey! Not so handsy, magic boy!" She danced back only to hit the surprisingly immovable object of Fenris.

"Let the mage heal your injury, Hawke." He rumbled, "Else why keep him?"

Flame it. _Now_ they cooperated. "I swear. You two are worse than my…." Aedan trailed off. No. That was still too sensitive. Rolling her eyes, she held her hand out for Anders, hoping to distract herself from that line of thought.

He probed the wound, working the crusting edges of the glove. "It's _not_ bad. You're lucky."

"Told you."

"Brat. You should have taken your glove off, though. Your hand will swell." His long fingers nimbly loosened the buckle across her wrist. "I'll just slit it the rest of the way open. It'll hurt less."

Aedan snagged the knife away. "Give me the bloody knife." Resigned to her fate, she drew the blade through the bloody, buttery (expensive) hide.

Anders peeled the glove back from the injury, exposing the cut and her wrist. "Hey, what's this?" Fenris looked over her shoulder, to see what Anders meant. She could feel his posture stiffen. Had to be archers. Couldn't just be assassins with blades to parry.

"A tattoo." She replied, archly. Could've just been Tal Vashoth. Giant spears and she could just have been _unconscious_ for this.

"This is new." Anders rotated her wrist, observing the healed mark.

"Yup." Aedan winced and her hand jerked in his grasp. "Can you go ahead? It stings."

"Right, then." His hand glowed and she relaxed as the curling warmth of healing magic unfurled over her palm. "You know, that looks like…Oh." Anders feathered shoulders hunched a little and Aedan bit back a sigh. She hadn't meant for them to see it.

"You get some new ink, Hawke?" Varric finished fussing over Bianca and came to check on his favorite assassin.

"A couple of weeks ago, yeah." She glanced back over her shoulder. Fenris was still staring at the stylized vine wrapped around Hawke's right wrist. Sodding Andraste's tainted knickers.

"Pretty." Varric read Hawke's face and nodded. "Hey, Blondie. That's nice work you do. Let's go get a pint, hmm?" He herded the mage towards the Hanged Man.

Aedan quirked a crooked smile at his broad back. Best dwarf ever. She rubbed at her forehead with her other hand, feeling blood flaking off her brow. She could almost feel the growl building in Fenris' chest.

"Why?" The word came out half-strangled and she flinched at the horror in it. She _knew_ he'd take it wrong. She turned to look at Fenris and saw him, hunched even farther over.

"It's just ink. Fenris." She tried to reassure him and stuffed down the coiling anguish in her gut. "There's no magic involved." Maybe it had been a dumb thing to do, but when Merrill had mentioned the tattooist in the alienage, she'd almost run to the artist. Should have worn the dragonhide. Should have firebombed the whole line of archers. Should have just taken the blighted arrow to the face.

"Why does it look like that, that?"

She spoke quietly. "Because that's how I asked for it to look. It's just grey ink. It matches my wings." She held her wrist out to show him the mark, light grey limned with green. Same green as his eyes. He stumbled back and she swallowed before whispering, "I didn't mean to upset you."

He was still staring at it as though it might morph into a snake and strike. She dropped her wrist with a sigh, and Fenris caught sight of the place on top of her wrist, where the vine knotted over itself. Very like the knotted silk ribbon he'd stolen from the neck of the chemise he'd shredded that night. He reached out and carefully took her hand, to look at the knot.

"This is…" His uncertainty sounded in his voice and Aedan felt her eyes burn. She turned her face away and snagged her lip in her teeth to worry at it. Flicking her wrist out of his grip, she tugged at the knot on his ribbon.

"You aren't the only one who's jessed, Fenris."

She twisted on her heel to follow Varric and Anders.

"But…I can take this off, Hawke. Anytime."

Maker's _Void_. She would _not_ let her voice crack. "Well, aren't you lucky? I can't." Honestly, she wouldn't care if he took that the wrong way, too. She made her feet move forward.

The slight tone of hope in his voice stopped her. "_Hawke_"

He caught up and laid his clawed hands gently on her shoulders. "Aedan."

She took a deep breath. "I'll play by your rules, Fenris. I'm your friend. I get that you can't…But, you can't tell me to stop…" That was as far as she could go.

"You did this after Leandra?" His grip tightened when she shuddered.

"After you came to see me. I thought I'd _hurt_ you. Before. And then you were there."

They stood there for a minute, silent while Lowtown closed in on itself for the night. Perhaps if they were the sort of people who wore their hearts on their sleeves, this would be easier, Aedan mused. She could feel Fenris' thumb tracing over the wing on her left shoulder. If she turned now, she'd be in his arms. Maybe. And maybe he'd bolt. She'd rather take what he offered.

Finally. "Could we…?"

"Do you want…? They spoke at the same time. She smiled and he chuckled.

She started again. "You shouldn't take too long a break on that reading practice, you know?"

"I would like to continue your Arcanum, as well."

She felt the breath move in her lungs then and she pulled away, to turn and look at him. "Tomorrow at lunch, then? Orana's been missing you." She tilted her head and arched her eyebrow. "Barring raining hordes of bandits or the Viscount needing his sodding hand held, of course."

"Tomorrow."

-00-

_Afternote:_

_Jessing is a practice used in falconry. As I understand it, the binding used on a hunting bird while on the falconer's wrist isn't meant as a trap, but as a means of security for the bird. A stabilizer. I figured after Leandra's death, Aedan might like a stabilizer. And when I saw how Fenris wore his ribbon, I thought this token of remembrance might work for Aedan, since she came into my headcanon with her tattoos, already._


End file.
